


let's play a game

by PaddyWack



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Supernatural Elements, slight hints of underage, some Non-Con elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-06 00:53:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16378298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaddyWack/pseuds/PaddyWack
Summary: It's happening again.Of course it is.





	let's play a game

“What kind of game?”

 

Newt looks at his friend curiously. The other boy is tall, taller than Newt by a mile, and he stands over him like a powerful tree. His body blocks out the sun and casts the little village of sticks Newt had been building in complete shadow.

 

No answer is forthcoming. Newt sighs and presses his hands into the ground, pushing himself carefully up from a crouch so as not to upset the precarious houses. He scrubs the dirt off onto his jeans as he asks again, “What kind of game?” and tries not to sound impatient.

 

Percival smiles.

 

Newt doesn’t particularly like that smile. It makes him nervous and confused, and usually means _it_ is going to happen. He’s not sure how to feel about _it._ A sense of unease settles heavily in his stomach. He starts to twist the tail of his shirt with his fingers. “Well?”

 

“It’s a game of survival,” Percival says, and his eyes are doing that funny thing again. They glow like there are little fireflies behind them, and Newt kind of regrets building the little stick constructs since he’d intended the whole village just for them. He thinks this his fault then, why Percival is smiling at him like that.

 

He swallows thickly. “What’s that mean?”

 

“It means,” he starts, placing a hand on Newt’s shoulder and pulling him a little closer. “It means that I’m the hunter, and you’re the prey. It means that I’m going to stand here and count down from a hundred while you run and hide.”

 

Like hide-and-seek, Newt thinks. Except he’s pretty sure it’s not like that at all. Not really.

 

He nods. “Okay.”

 

“Okay.” His eyes get even brighter, and Newt wonders if Percival is the only boy in the world who has lamps for eyes. “I’m going to start counting. Ready?”

 

Newt nods again, taking a half step back as Percival releases his shoulder and turns his back to start the countdown. “Ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven…better get going, Newt. You know how fast I am.”

 

He shivers at the gentle threat and turns on his heel, taking off like a bullet. He runs quickly down the hill and into the woods bordering the vast estate. He doesn’t care that he makes a lot of noise, crashing through the underbrush like he is, because he knows it doesn’t matter. It never has.

 

He only trips once. A rock juts up from the packed earth and snags the toe of his shoe, flattening him with enough force to knock the wind out of him. He jumps up immediately after, gasping, and keeps going. He can’t waste any time – every single second is vital. He runs even when his legs start to ache and his chest feels like it might explode. He pushes himself to go deeper into the trees, ignoring how the midday sun nearly disappears behind the canopy of foliage, plunging his world into deep shadows. He keeps running.

 

Eventually, he does have to slow down. He’s out of breath and dizzy, but he thinks he’s gone far enough inward to start looking for a hiding place. A felled tree covered in moss and dampness looks as good a place as any, and he makes his way over to it on quivering legs. It’s big, large enough to block him from sight, and he finds that the forest floor plunges a couple of feet on the other side, creating a cave-like impression for him to tuck into.

 

He settles in, slumping bonelessly against the wall of leaves, sticks, and exposed dirt. He closes his eyes and tries to control his breathing. He has to be quiet now. Absolutely quiet. His shirt is soaked with sweat and clings to his back even when he plucks it away with his fingers. Uncomfortable, he can only grimace in silence and force himself to be still.

 

He distracts himself for a little while by watching a beetle’s slow progress up his cave wall. He isn’t sure how much time passes, he hadn’t really been paying attention, but he knows it is way too soon when he suddenly hears the faint rustling of leaves being disturbed. As if someone were taking a leisurely stroll through the forest. The unhurried, almost lazy sound of steps, gently thumping against the ground.

 

Newt’s eyes widen in disbelief. His heart kicks up again double-time in his chest, fluttering like a frightened bird. His hands clench into fists at his sides and, slowly, so slowly, he tips his head back to stare upward, watching the edge of the fallen log and expecting at any moment to see someone lean over and spot him.

 

The steps wander closer – too close, and Newt just knows he’s going to be found. He sucks in a sharp breath and holds it in his lungs, trembling. He listens as the underbrush shushes against leather shoes, as sticks snap beneath pressure. He squeezes his eyes shut, fighting the burning in his lungs. There is someone there, right there, standing above him and behind the log. He knows they are looking. Can almost feel that smile pressing against his skin.

 

Just when he feels as if he might burst, the steps start to walk away from his hiding place. He listens as they unbelievably fade to nothing. Only then, when he’s positive he can’t hear anything anymore, does he let himself breathe, curling forward as the air punches out of him like a fist and just as quickly sucks itself back in. He gasps in fits and bursts, staring wildly around him in utter shock. Does this mean he won?

 

He catches his breath and gets to his knees, twisting to peek over the edge of the log and look around. He’s alone. Cautiously, he straightens up a little more, craning his neck to peer around trees farther away, but there’s no one there. He starts to grin, already imagining rubbing it in Percival’s face that he’s not _that_ fast. Not as fast as Newt.

 

He freezes. He feels his body go numb. The grin dies before it can fully emerge, and the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stand on end.

 

An undeniable heat caresses his back, and there it is. It’s happening again. He grits his teeth against the thrill that races down his spine, fear warring with excitement, with shame, and with something altogether unknown. It flips his stomach and drums his pulse. He stares at the emptiness before him and longs to run, wishing he could fling himself forward and escape, yet finds himself yearning to lean back, drop against the presence there, rest against the solid body.

 

The heat washes over him. A hand wraps around his throat from behind, and lips press against his ear, smiling. “Got you,” Percival murmurs.

 

Newt falls backward.

 

*

 

He’s not sure where Percival came from. One day he was just there, standing beside the garden gate and watching Newt read a book beneath the arbor. His family had bought the property bordering theirs, he’d said. They’d moved in that same day, and he’d gotten bored of watching the staff get everything settled. There was a path through the woods that led from his home to the orchard and straight to Newt’s mother’s garden. The path was overgrown and nearly invisible, but Newt could see it easily enough to follow when Percival showed it to him.

 

Newt had been uncertain of him at first, and the feeling never truly went away as they became friends and began spending the long summer days together. By some unspoken agreement, they never visited one another at home. They always met in the garden, but sometimes they would meet in the orchard and climb the trees to pick the brightest, reddest apples they could find.

 

Percival was older, though Newt never figured out by how much. He learned quickly not to ask such questions. Percival seemed to like his privacy, and wasn’t appreciative when Newt tried to wheedle out information about himself or his family. Newt didn’t mind too much, though. Aside from his mother’s prized thoroughbreds, and occasionally Theseus when he was feeling pleasant, Newt didn’t have many friends.

 

Being in Percival’s company was exciting, even if the older boy scared him sometimes.

 

They met when Newt had just turned eight. It was the summer after his first year of boarding school, and when the break was over and Newt was being packed away for another year, he made Percival swear to still be his friend, even though he’d be gone for nine months and wouldn’t be able to see him.

 

Percival had seemed amused, but Newt recognized his disappointment because he himself felt the same. Percival had agreed to his demands, allowing Newt to solemnly cross his heart with his finger as if it were a blade and this a binding vow.

 

“You swear?”

 

Percival had grabbed his wrist, holding Newt’s hand flat against his chest, and raised a single eyebrow at him. He didn’t say a word, he didn’t have to, and Newt silently accepted his answer.

 

He loathed leaving that first year, and every year after. He felt imprisoned by his instructors and trapped by the classrooms, ignored in large part by his peers and overlooked by generally everyone. Normally such a thing wouldn’t bother him, but now it only seemed to drive home how keenly he missed being the center of someone’s intense focus. He longed for Percival’s company and the solitude of their escapes. He felt it like a hunger, and he starved each time, right up until the moment he could step out of the cab from the train station and be swept up into the arms of his parents. He trembled with impatience through the welcomed hugs, glad to see them and happy to find Theseus home as well, but more than ready to break away for someone else.

 

The first time, he’d nearly been choked by panic and dread as he walked through the gate. Percival wasn’t waiting for him by the garden’s arbor, and he couldn’t find him in the orchard at their normal spot. He’d been dismayed, devastated at the loss, convinced that Percival had abandoned him. He nearly let himself cry, surprising even himself by the yawning sense of despair in his chest.

 

But then he’d heard something – a chuckle, soft and quiet. And then someone was behind him, breathing down his neck. He would have bolted had not Percival spoken then, and relief flooding him like a tidal wave.

 

“Welcome home, Newt.”

 

It became a sort of game every year after that. Newt would return from school and try to seek him out, sneak up on him as Percival seemed inclined to do to him. It was exciting and terrifying, never knowing when Percival would appear. Newt always wondered if his heart would end up thundering right out of his chest from the anticipation.

 

It wasn’t until Newt was twelve when the game changed. He returned home as usual and immediately set out to find his friend. Percival was waiting for him this time, however, in plain view. His lips formed a curious smile when their eyes met, and Newt hesitated, suddenly unsure if he should meet the boy or turn around and go home.

 

Percival smiled wider, called his name, and Newt found himself walking closer without realizing he’d chosen to do so. The rule was to run. There were other rules, but he wouldn’t learn those until much later, when he was older and faced Percival as a man.

 

As a child, the rule was that he had to run, and keep running until it happened – the end, the clash, sometimes a tackle that would send him careening through the grass. It didn’t really matter what caused it, only that inevitably he would find himself reeling through a mess he could hardly begin to comprehend, but of which Percival seemed endlessly in control of.

 

Out of breath, helpless, shaking with adrenaline, Newt would look up into the most unnatural eyes, glittering like diamonds in the dusky evenings. Glinting like steal. And he would feel it, rising up through his body and shaking his bones. He loved the feeling as much as it horrified him, as much as it ashamed him. And the game would be over – at least until Percival decided it was time to play again. They would dust themselves off, Newt laughing nervously and Percival smiling at the ground, looking as if he were hiding something.

 

*

 

He’s fifteen when the house goes up in flames.

 

It’s so big that he can hear it roaring from his bedroom. Both the Graves and Scamander estates are remote enough that it takes too long for the villagers to realize what’s happening. By the time volunteers come rushing in, armed in curving lines with buckets constantly being passed from the lake, the manor is little more than a charred skeleton.

 

Percival’s home is gone. Reduced to ash, and nobody seems certain how it happened, only that it has been an unnaturally dry summer and, really, it doesn’t take much when the conditions are right. What’s worse, the whole family seems to have perished with the house. There are no survivors, and it takes over a week for the heat to prove bearable enough for local authorities to shift through the rubble looking for charred bodies.

 

They find none, and it’s assumed they were burned to dust.

 

The town holds a funeral for the Graves family, and some kind soul is generous enough to have headstones erected in a personal plot at the edge of the cemetery. They mourn as a community.

 

Newt holds his grief like a stone in his chest, and nurses it alone.

 

A few months after the fire, the nightmares begin. He dreams that he is standing in the orchard, staring across the trees to the hill rise where the Graves manor used to stand, only its empty now. It’s night, and the moonlight is so faint that, at first, he doesn’t notice the figure standing between the trees. Not until it blurs and is suddenly standing before him.

 

He’s afraid, flinching and attempting to run, but then he realizes that it’s Percival. He looks haggard, and there are dark bruises beneath his shimmering eyes, and he does not smile as he stares at Newt.

 

He tries to ask what’s wrong, if he’s okay, only the words seem stuck in his throat.

 

Percival’s body trembles, and his mouth falls open. Where normal teeth should be are now elongated fangs, sharp and deadly. Newt feels his entire body turn to ice. He starts to speak, uncomprehending. Percival suddenly launches forward with a snarl, and Newt screams into the darkness of his bedroom as he flings himself from the tangled sheets.

 

He loses countless nights of sleep that year, only finding relief when away from home and back at school. Slowly, the dreams fade. Slowly, the memories heal. He still aches at the thought of Percival, still feels a blackness seep into his soul at the loss, but over time, as the months pass by and he gets through the summers without him, the sadness begins to lessen over a friendship he struggles to believe was ever real in the first place.

 

He meets a girl and tries not to compare her to Percival, even though it’s hard. They are okay – for a while. When it does end, and he feels more broken at the thought of twisted morals than heartache, he shakes it off and accepts the consequences. Eventually he does graduate, and he moves on to college and gets his degree.

 

His parents are not disappointed when he says he’s going to travel rather than settle down in a position with a fair wage. His mother especially encourages his burning curiosity of the world and all it has to offer. His father, though less enthusiastic, nonetheless presents him with a leather bound journal and says to keep a record of everything he sees. Who knows, perhaps he could write a book about it all one day.

 

He’s twenty-four and isn’t sure when he’ll return.

 

*

 

“But it’s Christmas, dear. And your aunt was so looking forward to seeing you.”

 

Newt smiles at his mother’s wheedling tone, knowing her irritation toward her sister and her pompous attitude will likely show itself without Newt’s interference. “I know, I’m sorry. I can’t really break away right now. Perhaps Theseus could entertain her in my stead.”

 

His mother gives an unladylike snort. “Likely,” she drawls, and they both laugh. “Oh, but I hate the thought of you alone during the holidays. It’s been so long.”

 

Three years to be exact, he thinks a little guiltily. He shifts and leans against the wall, idly doodling on a pad of paper with a fountain pen. “I’ll be quite busy. You shouldn’t worry.”

 

She sighs over the line. “Well, I can see you won’t be convinced. Just be careful. There are _wolves_ in New York, you know.”

 

“Not in the city,” he reassures her. “I’m miles away from the country. I’ll be just fine.”

 

“I will still worry.” He chuckles as they say their goodbyes and hang up, leaving him in a thick silence. He clears his throat and pushes off from the wall to sit back down at the table littered with his work. His apartment is small, big enough only for a split living room and kitchen area with a short hall leading to his one bedroom and tight bathroom. It’s quite the reverse from the sprawling estate he had grown up on, but he finds the place feels more like home than anywhere else.

 

He adjusts the wick in his lamp and pours in a bit more oil. The flame flares brightly and settles, casting his work table in a soft amber glow. Focusing on the page in front of him, he sets to work, the only sound coming from the faint scratching of his pen on paper.

 

At some point he starts to doze, as is his wont when working so late into the night. He is on the verge of a deep sleep, teetering there on the edge, when he first hears it. A whistling sound, so faint and soft that it does not immediately rouse him. If anything it only serves to lull him deeper into slumber.

 

But then it comes again, only this time it sounds like a voice. His sleep muddled brain does not register the interruption, as it is so quiet as to barely exist. As he drifts deeper, slumping heavier against the table, he dreams that someone is in the room with him. He can hear their silent breathing, can only just see them from beneath his eyelashes. A figure draped in black and standing in the corner by the counter.

 

He sighs in his sleep, fingers twitching. The figure steps toward him silently, and the shadows in the room seem to grow, darkening around him. Even the flame flickers and slowly dies, drawing the night in like a whisper. The figure does not move. Cold seeps in from the windows and sharpens Newt’s awareness, finally beginning to draw him from sleep.

 

He senses the figure leaning down, close enough for their skin to nearly touch. In that moment, the brief flash between him waking and sleeping, his body responds to the unknown figure with an almost visceral intent. Heat floods him in a rush, and he feels every nerve ending jolt to life as if he’s been burned. With a strangled sound, he shoves away from the table, away from the figure in his dream, and crashes against the wall, fully awake.

 

He gasps like a fish, scrabbling for purchase and jerking his gaze around the room for what had caused such panic. He sees nothing of course, knowing it had only been a dream and yet still feeling the back of his neck prickling as if someone had been close enough for their breath to linger there. He covers the spot with his hand.

 

As he stays there, pressed against the wall and staring at nothing, he finds himself replaying the scene in his head. More disturbing than the dream, or even the figure he imagined, Newt finds the most unsettling thing to be the strangled sound he had made before throwing himself away from the table.

 

He had said a name.

 

He had said _Percival._

 

*

 

Despite the scare, Newt does manage to put himself properly to bed and somehow get a few hours of sleep. He wakes the next morning feeling groggy and disoriented. Upon recalling the night before, however, he becomes alert rather quickly.

 

The first thing he sets about is calling Theseus.

 

His brother sounds as well rested as Newt himself, and it’s only then that he realizes it is just past five-thirty in the morning. He winces and murmurs an apology.

 

“’s alright,” Theseus slurs and yawns impressively. “What’s wrong?”

 

Newt drums his fingers on the wall next to the mounted phone box. “Nothing,” he says. “Happy Christmas.”

 

Theseus chuckles sleepily. “Yeah. Yeah, you too.”

 

The ear piece crackles quietly in Newt’s palm, the pause between them pregnant and uncomfortable. Newt bites his lip, unsure of why he felt the need to call his brother in the first place and yet wishing for some kind of reassurance from him all the same.

 

“Newt…?”

 

“Do you remember the Graves?”

 

“Like – in a cemetery?” Theseus asks, and Newt can hear the absurd tone coloring his voice.

 

“No – no. The family that used to live next to us. The Graves. They – “

 

“Died. Yes,” his brother interrupts, sounding slightly more awake now. “Their house burned down. I remember.”

 

Newt grimaces at the faint ghost of pain that brushes through his chest. “Right.”

 

“What about them?”

 

“Do you…do you remember the son? Percival?”

 

“Not really,” he says, yawning again. “I didn’t really ever talk to them. Why?”

 

_Because I think I just saw him in my living room._

 

Newt squeezes his eyes shut, irritated. He scrapes a hand through his hair and again covers the patch of skin on his neck that still manages to tingle even now.

 

“Newt? Why are you asking me about our dead neighbors?”

 

“It’s nothing,” he says quickly, once more convincing himself that his dream was just that – a dream. A rather vivid one, admittedly, but part of his imagination nonetheless. And there is nothing Theseus is capable of doing, or is even responsible for, in regards to that dream. “Sorry. I’ll let you get back to sleep. Give the family my love. Goodbye.”

 

“Newt – “

 

He drops the earpiece back in the cradle, cutting off his brother’s bewildered protests, and waits there for a moment in case he tries to dial back. A small part of him feels a little disappointed as the minutes tick by and Theseus doesn’t ring. He doesn’t really blame his brother, though. It isn’t even dawn yet and already he’s getting crazy phone calls from his crazy young brother.

 

Newt sighs and drags himself to the stove. He brews a kettle of water in silence and stares out the living room window. He can see the sun peeking above the skyline, cresting the buildings in a slow, languorous climb. He feels exhausted.

 

And, if he were being honest, quite unnerved.

 

He hadn’t thought of Percival in years; had not lingered on the memories of mixed emotions the strange boy had caused, torn between joy and absolute fear. If anything, he had forced himself to forget the companionship utterly, cherished as it had been at the time. It was easier that way – a form of self-preservation. And up until now, Newt had been able to keep such blinders in place.

 

He isn’t sure how to feel, grown now and shaken at the image of Percival in his home. He isn’t sure how to feel about the surge of anxiety and hope that careened him across the room, or the clench of anticipation that had tightened his stomach into a ball of nerves. He isn’t sure how to feel, because he’d honestly rather not think about it at all.

 

The scream of the kettle startles him abruptly from his thoughts, and he quickly takes it from the stove to pour into a waiting mug. While the tea steeps, he begins to straighten the mess of documents and notes on his desk into some semblance of order. He has a meeting at nine with his publicist. She despises when he turns over a messy folder of scribbled missives, and so he puts forth an effort in ordering the chaos into something she can work with.

 

He spends the rest of the morning pointedly ignoring any further thoughts of Percival.

 

*

 

You always know before the change comes.

 

He hurries throughout his day with a prickling between his shoulder blades, and he knows. He thinks it is similar to when a storm approaches, the thickness of the air, the tension in the earth waiting for that first rumble of thunder and a downpour of unforgiving rain. He imagines he can feel the exact moment in which the wind changes direction; that he can sense a shift of power in its coming.

 

He knows its coming. He just doesn’t know what it will bring.

 

*

 

By evening, he finds himself jumping at the slightest of sounds. There is a dull roar of static in the back of his mind, threatening at any moment to overcome his hearing entirely. He feels as if he is scurrying around like a frightened mouse, and that the cat’s claws will descend upon his exposed head at any moment.

 

He only wishes to be home. The walls, at least, will offer some sort of protection from – this. Whatever this is, whatever is happening here. Or going to happen.

 

He hurries past lamplighters armed with their poles, down familiar streets that are startlingly empty. He doesn’t pause to wonder why that is. He doesn’t stop to question the few bystanders he does see. He can’t. He is being hunted, and to stop now would seal his fate.

 

He turns the final corner, and halts. The street is cast in darkness – the wicks of each lamp blown out by some vengeful wind. The only sound is that of his own ragged breathing, diminished and pathetic even to his own ears. Awareness prickles down his spine like ice. He tries swallowing around the thickness of his tongue, and stares into the shadows.

 

He knows – of course he knows – what is waiting for him there. As a child, he couldn’t begin to fully understand what was before him, and how could he? Such things were the stuff of stories. Of nightmares. They were warnings from parents intending to keep their children in line. They were only ever meant as dark entertainment.

 

Be a good little boy, Newt, or the monsters will get you. Do as you’re told, or they will come for you.

 

They were only ever meant as reinforcement, never as a promise. And so he ignored the warning bells clanging in his head, turned a blind eye to the signs that screamed in his face. It was the glint of the sun causing his friend’s eyes to shimmer so, a trick of the light that made his teeth look unnaturally dangerous, and when they played together it was only Newt’s imagination that the other boy could disappear in the blink of an eye, moving faster than a lightening’s strike.

 

Deaf to the whisperings of the villagers, to the religious fanatics who left crosses and talismans on the entrance gates, to the dissenters who threatened with fire and brimstone, and to the mutterings of relief after the house had gone up in flames.

 

He was a _child_. It had been so easy to convince himself it was all make-believe. That his imaginary friend had gone away, as all imaginary friends must do, because Newt had gotten too old to play pretend. It helped also that the entire community only wished to do the same, to make it all disappear. And so they did.  

 

The realization that such a thing could no longer be possible leaves him numb with fear. His senses sharpen to a knife-point. He stands there, in the cold and in the dark, with his heart thundering in his ears, and feels –

 

Excitement.

 

He draws in a sharp breath, the sound cracking the silence like the report of a gun. So many years he has spent searching, seeking answers, looking for undeniable proof of what he was so afraid to acknowledge to be real. He told himself again and again it was all for his book. His travels and his studies on animal behavior, the countless hours pouring over research on predator mentality, it had been for work.

 

Only it provided such a perfect excuse, didn’t it? He took notes and he published essays, fronting in the name of higher learning, all the while unconsciously filing it away and finding himself tracking such a clean and tidy trail of bread crumbs.

 

And it all led here, to this city. To this cold place of towering buildings and deep alleyways forming a labyrinth of hiding places. How easy for a monster to wear a mask here. To blend in. To disappear.

 

The cold wind cuts right through his clothes and freezes his already numb skin. He knows he needs to move, but his boots feel as if they are frozen to the ground. He’s waiting for something, only he’s not entirely sure what it could be. He clenches his jaw so hard that his teeth creak against each other. And he waits.

 

The wind whistles, and with it carries a sound that finally sets him free. A chuckle, so faint and quiet he barely hears, and a voice that rumbles like rolling thunder.

 

_Let’s play a game._

Newt throws himself into a full out sprint. His arms pump at his sides in a blur, and his boots eat up the ground like he’s flying. He doesn’t think he’s ever moved so fast in his life. He isn’t even certain if he’s breathing. The street stretches out before him in complete darkness and he runs blindly into it, not allowing himself to feel even an ounce of hesitation.

 

Almost immediately he feels something behind, giving chase. He feels the displaced air at his back, dogging him like a hound straight out of Hell.

 

_There’s no surrender._

 

_There’s no escape._

Frantically, he flings himself to the side. Something hurtles past him with a snarl, and he throws out a hand to catch the bricks of the building in front of him. He scrapes his fingers as he pushes off, running even harder down the alley before him.

 

He has no idea where to go. He isn’t even sure what to do – except follow the rules. There is no forest to disappear inside like when they were children. Even then, he thinks, it was never possible for him to hide for very long. He was always found. His home offers no sanctuary from something of this nature, either. He’s not sure anyplace is safe.

 

With a grunt of effort, he clambers over a pile of rubbish and keeps going, sliding in the snow and slush. Something follows effortlessly behind, and Newt can feel its ruthless delight pouring over him like a wave. It’s a wild game of survival. He’s been playing it for years, it seems like, and all the while he knew he could never win.

 

He realizes this with a cold sense of certainty when he is forced to careen to a stop, a solid wall of brick before him and rising up on both sides. Gasping and trembling, he presses his hands to the stone and lets his head drop between his raised arms. His knees quiver from the adrenaline coursing through his veins, unwilling to accept defeat quite yet.

 

He can’t climb it, but perhaps he can find a way around. He twists on his heel, intending to double-back while he still has precious seconds to spare, and is swiftly pinned to the wall like an insect.

 

That chuckle again. It curls around his ears like velvet, caressing the cold skin there. He gasps for breath helplessly, his lungs burning nearly as much as his legs. He doesn’t close his eyes. He can’t. He won’t deny himself witnessing what he’s been hoping to find since the fire.

 

A part of himself, a large part, quails in absolute fear.

 

But a piece of him, small and shaking, can’t help but stare in wonder.

 

Those familiar eyes glitter and shine back at him like polished silver, catching and holding the moonlight like thieves. The face is older, matured, and yet still possesses a youthfulness around the softly smiling mouth – a mouth that shows too-long canines, razor sharp and threatening. Newt presses himself harder into the wall at his back, even now seeking some sort of escape when such a thing is so obviously impossible.

 

Percival smiles wider. “Hello, Newt.”

 

*

 

It happens again. Of course it does. He has always been powerless against its hunger, its insatiable need. The most willing of victims to have ever faced such a creature. His body shakes with an emotion that has only ever grown since he was child. He didn’t know what it was back then, couldn’t understand what compelled him so utterly. He knows now.

 

He’s still afraid of it. Still has the overwhelming urge to break away from it. But just as the fear seizes his heart and nearly stops it beating, a rush of liquid heat lights him up from the inside. He’s caught – trapped in an inferno of an all-consuming, terrible desire. It keeps him rooted in place, his eyes wide and staring, drinking in the sight of the one person he thinks he would chase to the ends of the earth. And probably further still.

 

Newt slumps heavily against the wall, defeated. The hands pinning him in place tighten and pull him closer. Closer to that dangerous smile.

 

“I’ve got you,” Percival murmurs, and he brings his face near Newt’s, tracing the line of his jaw, inhaling deeply the shameful scent of Newt’s burning lust. He hums, pleased, as Newt shudders in his arms, causing them to tighten in response, and then start to move.

 

One caresses his side, wrapping firmly around his waist and slowly drawing him flush against Percival’s body. The other comes up to lightly grasp Newt by the chin, tipping his head back and to the side. His throat is exposed, vulnerable, and his pulse quickens.

 

He feels teeth graze his throat and inhales sharply through his nose. He can only just see Percival’s eyes dancing in the dark, watching his every twitch and sigh with the gaze of a hunter. This game is wholly different than the one they played as children, something altogether new. It frightens Newt, terrorizes him to the core.

 

And yet he still reaches for it. He grasps Percival by the wrists and presses forward boldly. It’s a new game, and this time he wants to win.


End file.
